Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war updates, Turkey distances itself from Iran and Russia, and confrontation vs the SDF.
Ukraine war updates.
1) Frontlines remain largely unchanged.
Ukrainian forces carried out drone strikes on Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, on December 21.
These long-range deep strike drones traveling hundreds of miles were ostensibly targeting a gunpowder production facility in Kazan.
But some of them have unfortunately hit residential buildings instead - likely due to being thrown off-course by the Russian EW (electronic warfare) capabilities.
In the meantime, Russian forces achieved advances in Kursk Oblast, as well as near Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
2) Russia withdrew its valuable assets from Syria.
Russia is reportedly withdrawing advanced air-defense systems (S-300 and S-400s) and other sophisticated weaponry from its bases in Syria, redeploying them to Libya, according to U.S. and Libyan officials.
This move underscores Russia's precarious position in Syria, as its long-term presence becomes increasingly untenable. Efforts to secure alternative warm-water ports are faltering, with Sudan formally rejecting Moscow's request for a Red Sea base and indications that Libya’s General Khalifa Haftar may also be reluctant.
Haftar, reliant on Russian support to maintain a military stalemate with Turkish-backed Tripoli forces, appears wary of a heightened Russian presence in Libya.
His primary objective is preserving his geopolitical flexibility, which could be compromised by deeper Russian involvement.
U.S. officials, including AFRICOM's commander, have reportedly conveyed to Haftar during visits to Benghazi that a Russian naval base in Libya would be unwelcome to say the least..
Washington is expected to actively deter any potential host from enabling Moscow’s ambitions, complicating the situation for both Haftar and Russia.
Haftar now finds himself in a delicate position, balancing between sustaining Russian support and avoiding U.S. retaliation.
His strategy will likely hinge on minimizing risks from both sides while maintaining control over eastern Libya.
There is therefore a plausible chance of him turning down the Russian request.
3) Putin’s end of year live Q&A: mix of bravado and insanity.
“When everything is calm, measured, stable, we are bored” was a prominent line in Putin’s response to the first question asking about the ‘‘world going crazy’’.
If one ever needed proof that this war started due to imperial revisionist ambitions of a madman getting bored and disgruntled with the status quo - well here is yet another evidence of this.
Putin then burnished his madman bona fides when talking about Russia’s newest ballistic missile - “Oreshnik’’.
This missile is ostensibly capable of reaching Mach 10+ in flight and is thus not interceptable by air defense systems like Patriots and THAAD - and only SM-3 missiles (capable of reaching the speeds of mach 13+) of the Aegis Ashore system in Poland (or those on the US ships) could theoretically intercept these.
Talking up Oreshnik’s capabilities is Putin’s favorite pastime these days.
But on this occasion, he escalated into pure madman territory - suggesting that Russia and Ukraine’s Western allies could conduct a hypersonic duel: to see if they could prevent Oreshnik getting through and hitting locations in Kyiv.
Kyiv is a city of 3m+ and whether the missile was to strike as intended or successfully intercepted and destroyed in flight, the result would be approximately the same: lots of collateral damage and potential civilian deaths.
But Putin didn’t even pause to consider this - such trivialities like the deaths of innocent civilians is evidently beyond his comprehension.
(side note: in response, Zelensky, speaking at a European Council meeting in Brussels, questioned Putin’s mental stability, asking rhetorically, "Do you think he is a sane person?")
And with this behavior, he is playing into Ukraine’s argument that one cannot possibly negotiate with a madman like Putin in good faith - that any genuine negotiations must be conducted solely from a position of strength and significant leverage.
Speaking of negotiations - Putin indicated that he is willing to talk to and negotiate with Trump - and to even ‘‘compromise’’.
But he rebuffed any suggestions that this would be conducted from a position of weakness - after pointing out the recent progress on the battlefield and the strength of Russia’s economy, Putin declared that Russia was moving towards the accomplishment of all the ‘‘primary objectives’’ of its ‘‘special military operation’’.
Now, Putin may be right about the situation on the battlefield (at least in the near term), but in terms of the economic performance, the opposite is true.
Ukraine’s central bank projects GDP growth of 4% in 2024 and 4.3% in 2025, with currency stability and interest rates at 13.5%, near a 30-month low.
In stark contrast, Russia faces looming interest rate hikes to 23% to stabilize the falling rouble, fragile banks, and GDP growth forecasted at only 0.5-1.5% in 2025.
Russia’s economic high-point (experienced after mass spending on the war) has reached its peak.
The future is more bleak: there is a serious shortage of manpower, and every soldier recruited into the army detracts from the military-industrial potential of the state.
The economy is overheating and the central bank will either have to raise the already sky-high interest rates even further (causing even further public discontent) or avoid these measures and risk causing further increases in inflation (and cut to Russians’ purchasing power/real incomes).
Add to this, if Trump does good on his promise to “drill baby drill”, the prices for oil could end at a point where the Russian coffers don’t get sufficient revenue to keep up the current pace - even a $10 reduction in global oil prices would cause a significant loss to Russian budget.
(side note: although it is too soon to evaluate this possibility with sufficient accuracy. For one, the U.S. is already operating in almost max capacity when it comes to oil drilling. Furthermore, if Trump was to tighten the screws on the enforcement of sanctions on Iranian oil, then any meagre gains in supply could potentially be offset by cuts in Iranian shipments.)
One thing we can be broadly confident about: the Russian economy is overheating and but for Ukraine forced into capitulation, tough policy choices await Putin in 2025.
Trump to insist on a 5% NATO defense budget - U.S. aid to Ukraine to remain in place.
Donald Trump’s team has reportedly informed European officials that the incoming US administration will demand NATO member states increase defense spending to 5% of GDP while continuing military aid to Ukraine.
Senior British security officials recently visited Washington to evaluate the president-elect’s plans, noting Trump’s belief in achieving “peace through strength” by supplying weapons to Kyiv post-ceasefire.
Close foreign policy advisers to Trump conveyed these intentions during recent discussions with senior European officials, signaling a shift from his campaign rhetoric, which included threats to cut off aid to Ukraine and leave NATO allies undefended if they failed to meet spending targets.
Despite campaign pledges to force immediate peace talks and curtail aid to Ukraine, crucially, Trump’s current plan includes maintaining military support for Kyiv post-inauguration, easing concerns in Europe about a potential halt in U.S. assistance.
Trump’s NATO spending demand surpasses the current 2% GDP target, which only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members meet.
Sources close to Trump suggest he may settle for a figure closer to 3.5%, linking increased spending to more favorable U.S. trade terms.
Discussions are already underway among NATO allies to raise the spending target to 3% at the June summit in The Hague, but many capitals worry about the fiscal challenges this increase entails.
The U.S., by comparison, plans to spend 3.1% of GDP on defense in 2024.
Three things to note here:
1) Insisting on higher NATO spend is good - Europe has had three years of a major continental war of invasion, and most of the major powers like Italy, France, and Germany are not spending nearly enough;
2) If the U.S. is to really insist on 5% or even 3.5%, we need to get there first;
3) Most of the European allies are now used to Trump’s ‘‘start high, settle for something reasonable/an improvement to status quo’’ style of diplomacy - so it is almost inconceivable that most European states will more than double their budgets to 5% in such a short order.
Turkey’s cooling relations with Iran, Russia and SDF.
In a comprehensive interview with al-Jazeera, the Turkish foreign minister Fidan didn’t mince his words on both Russia and Iran.
Fidan emphasized Turkey’s role in dissuading both Moscow and Tehran from propping up Assad.
And this can be seen as observable truth during Doha negotiations in the final days of the Assad regime.
What he said next was even more astonishing: Fidan explained the importance of preventing Russian or Iranian intervention, less they would bomb ‘‘indiscriminately’’ and cause ‘‘terror’’ to civilians.
This is notable: Turkish foreign minister openly accuses both Iran and Russia of war crimes.
What Fidan says about Iran’s “axis of resistance” is also notable.
In response to the question about Iranian axis of resistance being broken in Syria, Turkish foreign minister said the following:
Well, with all due respect to our Iranian friends, I mean, we've had this discussion maybe thousand times with them because their presence in Syria didn't prevent a big genocide in Gaza
This is essentially a slap in the face for Iran: Turkish FM is openly calling out the pretense that Iranian presence in Syria was somehow organized to ‘‘resist’’ the ‘‘Evil Israeli regime’’ committing genocide in Gaza.
The Turkish foreign minister is now openly deriding Iranian hard power - describing their presence in Syria as ineffectual.
This is a significant break in Turkey - Iran relations (and an opening for Israel, if they play their hands right and normalize relations with Ankara.)
Turkey vs SDF.
When it comes to Kurdish SDF militias in the northreastern Syria, Turkey secured yet another diplomatic win: Germany has agreed to Turkey's demand that Kurdish militia groups in Syria must be disarmed.
Germany is not pursuing Turkish interests here - they simply understand that a stable Syria cannot possibly exist when various militias retain military power and challenge the central authority of the state.
A second major NATO ally now agrees that SDF should not exist as a military force.
(side note: naturally, in her discussions with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also emphasized that the security of Kurdish populations must also be safeguarded.)
In the meantime, the situation regarding the ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) remains unclear, with sharp contradictions emerging between Turkish and U.S. accounts.
On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller announced that the ceasefire, initially brokered during recent clashes near Manbij, had been extended until the end of the week.
However, Turkey quickly refuted this claim - dismissing the notion of an extended ceasefire or any ongoing negotiations, reiterating Ankara’s stance that it does not engage in dialogue with groups it considers terrorist organizations, including the SDF.
But then, Vedant Patel, another State Department spokesperson, doubled down on the U.S. position, asserting that the ceasefire remains in effect and is holding, particularly in sensitive areas such as Manbij and Kobani.
This suggests a stark disconnect between Washington’s assessment and Ankara’s public narrative.
There are however some silver linings:
1) Blinken traveled to Turkey last week and the resulting statement at the end of the visit suggested further alignment between Ankara and Washington;
2) In a bid to de-escalate, Kurdish forces have reportedly offered to withdraw non-Syrian Kurdish fighters if a truce is formalized, and;
3) al-Sharaa met US diplomats and the US lifted the $10m bounty on his head.
This is important, for if al-Sharaa has any chance of exercising leverage over the disparate rebel groups internally, he needs all the help he can get: conferrence of legitimacy from regional and global powers like Turkey and the US is certainly a good start.
But this is not enough.
For Syria to have a chance to rebuild itself effectively, its people need to see a path towards security and prosperity.
Rebel/sectarian groups must also believe that becoming a part of a more prosperous central state will be far better than carving out a poor and isolated fiefdom.
Consequently, the bulk of the Assad-regime era sanctions on Syria must be lifted as well.
Some, less-broad sanctions may remain (until further milestones are achieved).
But a lot of the CAESAR act related sanctions on Syria are crippling for all Syrians (effectively precluding foreign investment in the country).
If the HTS-led government proves to be another bad apple, new sanctions can always be reimposed at a later date.
But for now, Syrians need all the help they need to get back on their feet.